Post: 2 of 9 From: bradr@bartok.Sun.COM (Brad Rubenstein) Newsgroups: comp.music Subject: Music-Research Digest Vol. 5, #27 Date: 24 Mar 90 00:14:43 GMT Reply-To: music-research%bartok@sun.UUCP Lines: 281 Music-Research Digest Sun, 18 Mar 90 Volume 5 : Issue 27 Today's Topics: Fractal music generation job posting Music Education (was: Re: MR Vol. 5, #21) PD Music editing software anyone ? Sound Design and Music Publishing Colloquium *** Send contributions to Music-Research@uk.ac.oxford.prg *** Send administrative requests to Music-Research-Request *** Overseas users should reverse UK addresses and give gateway if necessary *** e.g. Music-Research@prg.oxford.ac.uk *** or Music-Research%prg.oxford.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 10 Mar 90 17:17:15 GMT on.cc.bingvaxu>lich alex@bilver.UUCP (Alex Matulich) writes: > >I tried an experiment based on the generation of a Koch curve, assigning >a relationship between note pitch and line angle, and another relationship >between note duration and line length. My experimented generated a This sounds like something I have done. I used about 10 of the common "dragon curves" (including Koch). The change in pitch was related to the angle (360 degrees corresponds to an octave), and duration was related to line segment length. Of course, the duration should be a POWER of the line length (the exponent is the reciprocal of the fractal dimension) in order to achieve true self-similarity. The curve known as "McWorter's pentigree" uses angles of 72 and 144 degrees, which correspond to intervals not used in Western music. Peculiar. If there is some interest I can post the programs. (Logo source code, or Macintosh executable.) (By the way, there is some literature on "fractal music", and it is NOT this!!!) -- Gerald A. Edgar Department of Mathematics Bitnet: EDGAR@OHSTPY The Ohio State University Internet: edgar@mps.ohio-state.edu Columbus, OH 43210 ...!{att,pyramid}!osu-cis!shape.mps.ohio-state.edu!edgar Post: 79 of 179 From: george@shumv1.ncsu.edu (George Browning) Newsgroups: comp.music,alt.fractals,comp.sources.wanted Subject: Re: Fractal Music Generation (summary) Keywords: I need help Date: 9 Apr 90 15:19:58 GMT Reply-To: george@shumv1.ncsu.edu (George Browning) Organization: NCSU Computing Center Lines: 36 In article <562@bilver.UUCP> alex@bilver.UUCP (Alex Matulich) writes: >Several weeks ago I posted an a plea for help in comp.music and >comp.sources.wanted for an algorithm to generate fractal music. I lost the >original text of my posting, but the gist of it was this: > I have an article from the book Fundamental Algorithms for Computer Graphics written by Richard F. Voss that talks about fractal music. Voss says "One of my exciting discoveries was that almost all musical melodies also mimic 1/f noise." He gives some pictures and examples, including a couple of "spectral density measurements of the pitch variations in various types of music showing their common correlations as 1/f noise" These graphs show such things as Medieval music up to 1300, Beethoven's 3rd Symphony and the Beatles Sgt. Pepper. I am not sure exactly how to generate 1/f noise (it doesn't look too easy) but I will know how to by the end of the semester, as my graphics project depends on it. I am going to use it to make both terrain maps and texture maps for water. You may also want to look at: Voss, R. F. and Clarke, J. "1/f Noise in Music: Music from 1/f Noise", J. Accous. Soc. Am. 63, (1978), 258-263. Voss, R. F. and Clarke, J. "'1/f noise' in music and speech", Nature 258, 317-8 (1975). - Jeff -- _____________________________________________________________________ | George Browning North Carolina State University | | george@shumv1.ncsu.edu Raleigh, NC | |___________________________________________________________________| Post: 87 of 179 From: billd@fps.com (Bill Davidson) Newsgroups: comp.music,alt.fractals,comp.sources.wanted Subject: Re: Fractal Music Generation Keywords: I need help Date: 10 Apr 90 19:27:13 GMT Followup-To: comp.music Organization: FPS Computing Inc., San Diego CA Lines: 11 In article <562@bilver.UUCP> alex@bilver.UUCP (Alex Matulich) writes: [asks for info on fractal music] I have two references: Dietrick E. Thomsen, "Making Music Fractally", Science News, Mar 22, 1980 Richard F. Voss, "Random Fractal Forgeries", SIGGRAPH '85 Course Notes for Fractals: Basic Concepts, Computation and Rendering. --Bill Davidson Post: 89 of 179 From: mu298ac@sdcc6.ucsd.edu (Philip Marlowe) Newsgroups: comp.music,alt.fractals,comp.sources.wanted Subject: Re: Fractal Music Generation (summary) Keywords: I need help Date: 11 Apr 90 03:28:53 GMT Followup-To: comp.music Organization: University of California, San Diego Lines: 41 e Browning) writes:9.151958.26859@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> george@shumv1.ncsu.edu (Georg >In article <562@bilver.UUCP> alex@bilver.UUCP (Alex Matulich) writes: > > I have an article from the book Fundamental Algorithms for >Computer Graphics written by Richard F. Voss that talks about fractal >music. Voss says "One of my exciting discoveries was that almost all >musical melodies also mimic 1/f noise." He gives some pictures and This is an incredibly obvious statement to make. Stepwise motion is an important attribute of many tonal melodies,and 1/f noise generates stepwise motion. So why can't you program 1/f noise to produce good tonal melodies? Because tonal melody is not random; it has very strong directionality, and any programmer who wants to have an algorithm that would produce good tonal melodies has to take goal-oriented motion into account, which I don't believe is possible with fractals. Traditional tonal melody is incredibly causal. It can not be modeled on random procedures. If there is any way for computers to write good, catchy, tonal melodies, I suspect it must be through an alogrithm which is contructed on the rules that most musicians learn in theory class for writing melodies (too much stepwise motion in the same directionis boring; an upward leap is usually followed by a downward resolution by step, unless it's outlining a triad; etc.) If you really want some insight into how tonal melody works, and why good melodies *sound* good, try reading Leonard Meyer's _Emotion_and_Meaning_in_Music_ and _Explaining_Music_. Previous discussions in this group about fugues being "self-similar" shows a lack of understanding about just what a fugue is. Just because something is repeated at the same level, it doesn't imply self-similarity (or does it?) If you examine a Bach fugue at the middleground or background level, you will see absolutely no replication of the subject or countersubject, say. What is self-similar, perhaps, on these levels will be the movement from tonic to dominant to tonic, but even this isn't guaranteed, and besides, it's a self-similarity shared by just about every other piece of baroque and classical music, as Schenker would have us believe. I really don't think you can call thematic unity self-similarity. Post: 90 of 179 From: err@fibercom.COM (Eric Rubin) Newsgroups: comp.music,alt.fractals Subject: Re: Fractal Music Generation (summary) Keywords: I need help Date: 10 Apr 90 12:44:48 GMT Reply-To: err@fibercom.COM (Eric Rubin) Organization: FiberCom Inc., Roanoke, Virginia Lines: 12 -state.edu (Gerald Edgar) writes:zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu> edgar@shape.mps.ohio >If there is some interest I can post the programs. (Logo source code, >or Macintosh executable.) I'd like to see the Logo source code. -- Eric Rubin INTERNET: err@fibercom.com FiberCom, Inc. UUCP: ...!uunet!fibercom!err P.O. Box 11966 PHONE: 703-342-6700, 800-423-1183 x348 Roanoke, VA 24022-1966 FAX: 703-342-5961 Post: 94 of 179 From: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) Newsgroups: comp.music,rec.music.classical Subject: Re: Fractal Music Generation (summary) Summary: tonal music and random procedures Keywords: music theory, composition, Meyer Date: 11 Apr 90 14:34:03 GMT Reply-To: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) Organization: USC-Information Sciences Institute Lines: 170 In article <9613@sdcc6.ucsd.edu> mu298ac@sdcc6.ucsd.edu (Philip Marlowe) writes: >In article <1990Apr9.151958.26859@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> george@shumv1.ncsu.edu >(George Browning) writes: >>In article <562@bilver.UUCP> alex@bilver.UUCP (Alex Matulich) writes: >> >> I have an article from the book Fundamental Algorithms for >>Computer Graphics written by Richard F. Voss that talks about fractal >>music. Voss says "One of my exciting discoveries was that almost all >>musical melodies also mimic 1/f noise." > > This is an incredibly obvious statement to make. Stepwise >motion is an important attribute of many tonal melodies,and 1/f >noise >generates stepwise motion. So why can't you program 1/f noise to >produce good tonal melodies? Because tonal melody is not random; it >has very strong directionality, and any programmer who wants to >have an algorithm that would produce good tonal melodies has to take >goal-oriented motion into account, which I don't believe is possible >with fractals. Traditional tonal melody is incredibly causal. It >can not be modeled on random procedures. If there is any way for >computers to write good, catchy, tonal melodies, I suspect it must >be through an alogrithm which is contructed on the rules that most >musicians learn in theory class for writing melodies (too much >stepwise motion in the same directionis boring; an upward leap is >usually followed by a downward resolution by step, unless it's >outlining a triad; etc.) > There have been no end of attempts in this direction, and none have been particularly successful. The problem is that random procedures are being applied at the wrong level of granularity. To try to draw an appropriate analogy, it is sort of like assuming that you could construct sentences through random selection of syllables. Lejaren Hiller actually tried to do something like this in his "Computer Cantata," experimenting with Markov processes with different "prior memory capacity;" and the best he could do was come up with the occasional coherent word or two. People who have been interested in random sentence generation know that you get a lot more mileage out of defining your world in terms of a context-free grammar and then using random procedures to determine which productions you invoke. There are a few analogies to this practice in music. If we consider the model era, which preceded tonality, we can find an example of such a context-free grammar in Dom Paolo Ferretti's ESTHETIQUE GREGORIENNE. (The French translation of this book appeared in 1938, so don't expect to find any of Chomsky's terminology in it.) Ferretti devotes considerable text to the analysis of CENTONIZATION, a process by which new plainchants were made up by piecing together fragments (CENTONS, from the French for a patch in a patchwork quilt) of old ones. Ferretti was astute enough to realize that one could not put the patches together any old way; and he offers up a table which, for all intents and purposes, is a set of productions for centonizing chants in the Dorian mode. It works rather well; and I implemented a "random sentence generator" based on this table as part of my doctoral thesis. There are any number of "dice composers" which apply a similar principle to tonal music, the most famous being by Mozart. Here, a random procedure is invoked only for the selection of the terminals. The nonterminal nodes of the parse tree have been fixed by the "composer." The bulk of his work has gone into making sure that the choices of terminals for any given node are interchangeable. I find it slightly disheartening that people continue to disregard what appears to be an important lesson from these experiments, which is that composers tend to work at a higher level of granularity than individual notes. This is not to say that there are not situations in which choosing a specific note is not important. Certainly, every writer has situations in which it is critically important to choose just the right word; but if every writer applied that attention to EVERY word, very little would get written. Composition is a matter of working which "musical ideas." None of us may be able to pin down just what that phrase denotes, but my own intuition tells me that it has a lot to do with memories of past listening experiences. To some extent, all composers centonize--picking up materials from past experiences and finding new ways in which to assemble them. If we are determined to seek out algorithmic rules, then it would seem that these rules should be directed at two key questions: 1. How do we identify such units of material? 2. How do we determine how, given a collection of those units, they may be properly assembled? > If you really want some insight into how tonal melody works, >and why good melodies *sound* good, try reading Leonard Meyer's >_Emotion_and_Meaning_in_Music_ and _Explaining_Music_. > Meyer probably deserves due credit for being one of the first to recognize that a question like "how tonal melody works" is probably as much a matter of psychology as it is of music theory (if not more so). However, Meyer's understanding of psychology is rather naive. He seems more interested in exhibiting the BREADTH of his reading in non-musical subjects than in trying to apply any of those areas in DEPTH. Anyone interested in a more serious exposition of how cognitive psychology may provide the sorts of insights Philip has in mind would do better to turn to a book like John Sloboda's THE MUSICAL MIND. (I disagree with a good deal of what Sloboda says in this book, but he DOES know how to lay out the relevant issues.) > Previous discussions in this group about fugues being >"self-similar" shows a lack of understanding about just what a fugue >is. Just because something is repeated at the same level, it doesn't >imply self-similarity (or does it?) If you examine a Bach fugue at >the middleground or background level, you will see absolutely no >replication of the subject or countersubject, say. What is >self-similar, perhaps, on these levels will be the movement from >tonic to dominant to tonic, but even this isn't guaranteed, and >besides, it's a self-similarity shared by just about every other >piece of baroque and classical music, as Schenker would have us >believe. I really don't think you can call thematic unity >self-similarity. Again, the issue seems to be one of granularity. What is REALLY important about Schenker is that he tried to make us acknowledge that analysis must proceed at many different levels of granularity. Unfortunately, his (German?) sense of order led him to assume that these granules could be neatly embedded in a hierarchy; and this assumption has been carried on by both Meyer and Narmour, on one hand, Lerdahl and Jackendoff, on another, and Yeston, on a third. (There are probably several more hands lurking out there, but I am not particularly inclined to catalog them.) Fortunately, Lewin seems to have broken out of this "dictatorship of the hierarchy" in his recent "Music Theory, Phenomenology, and Modes of Perception" paper; and my own guess is that he will benefit from this liberation. Another question is why we wish to place so much emphasis on "self-similarity." Do we, as listeners, devote so much of our cognitive attention so simply being able to recognize that we have heard something before? Let me try sticking my neck out on a hypothesis here which has been inspired by the work of Marvin Minsky (who has written about music, as well as artificial intelligence). Minsky believe that much of understanding is a matter of being able to recognize, and account for, DIFFERENCES. This is a bit like saying that much of music is concerned with what we loosely call "variation" and the fact that, as music history has progressed, we have become more and more liberal about what constitutes a variation. What makes the game interesting, however, is that we cannot perceive differences unless we gauge them against some standard of SAMENESS. For example, in BOLERO, we quickly recognize that variation is almost entirely a matter of orchestral color (all that parallel motion is almost like trying to build up new sound spectra) while everything else stays the same. Thus, we seek out self-similarity not for its own sake but for the ability to detect differences. Fugues are exercises in how a melodic motif may be engaged in many different contexts, so that it is CONTEXT which becomes the basis for variation. In all fairness, I should point out that Meyer has tried to pursue a similar line of thought. Much of his writing in music theory is concerned with EXPECTATIONS. However, he seems to believe that expectations may be grounds on universal principles, such as those of gestalt psychology. I, on the other hand, think they are grounded on our ability to perceive self-similarity, either within the context of a single composition or with respect to our past listening experiences. In other words, we seek out trying to identify what we are hearing as being like something we have heard before, because then we will assume that it will "go the same way." This becomes a basis for our expectations, and we listen to hear if those expectations are satisfied or if something different occurs. Thus, the mind is engaged; and we are now exhibiting the behavior of listening to music. (One final point: I am cross-posting this to rec.music.classical, since that bulletin board provides a home for many opinions about both composition and music theory.) ========================================================================= USPS: Stephen Smoliar USC Information Sciences Institute 4676 Admiralty Way Suite 1001 Marina del Rey, California 90292-6695 Internet: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu "Only a schoolteacher innocent of how literature is made could have written such a line."--Gore Vidal Post: 95 of 179 From: kassover@jupiter.crd.ge.com (David Kassover) Newsgroups: comp.music Subject: Re: Fractal Music Generation (summary) Date: 11 Apr 90 15:11:34 GMT Organization: Aule-Tek, Inc. Lines: 38 In article <9613@sdcc6.ucsd.edu> mu298ac@sdcc6.ucsd.edu (Philip Marlowe) writes: rge Browning) writes:9.151958.26859@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> george@shumv1.ncsu.edu (Geo | | In article <562@bilver.UUCP> alex@bilver.UUCP (Alex Matulich) writes: | | | | I have an article from the book Fundamental Algorithms for | | Computer Graphics written by Richard F. Voss that talks about fractal | | music. Voss says "One of my exciting discoveries was that almost all | | musical melodies also mimic 1/f noise." He gives some pictures and | | This is an incredibly obvious statement to make. Stepwise | motion is an important attribute of many tonal melodies,and 1/f | noise | generates stepwise motion. So why can't you program 1/f noise to | produce good tonal melodies? Because tonal melody is not random; it | has very strong directionality, and any programmer who wants to | have an algorithm that would produce good tonal melodies has to take | goal-oriented motion into account, which I don't believe is possible | with fractals. ... About a year and a half ago, I was at a lecture given by Mandelbrot. Someone asked him about fractal music. He replied to the effect that he had heard the output of some experiments in that area, and that they didn't "sound good". (Whatever that means) We in the audience were not given referencer the opportunity to hear similar musical pieces and thus form our own opinions. De gustibus non est disputandum. Or as my father would say, "Sahzeechizone" -- =================================================== Post: 106 of 179 From: quiniou@calculo.irisa.fr (Rene Quiniou) Newsgroups: comp.music,rec.music.classical Subject: Re: Fractal Music Generation (summary) Keywords: music theory, composition, Meyer Date: 12 Apr 90 07:20:44 GMT Reply-To: quiniou@irisa.fr Organization: Irisa, Rennes(FR) Lines: 41 Could you post the exact references of the sources cited in your article as well as your thesis, please? In article <12859@venera.isi.edu>, smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) writes: |> In article <9613@sdcc6.ucsd.edu> mu298ac@sdcc6.ucsd.edu (Philip Marlowe) |> writes: |> >In article <1990Apr9.151958.26859@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> george@shumv1.ncsu.edu |> >(George Browning) writes: |> >>In article <562@bilver.UUCP> alex@bilver.UUCP (Alex Matulich) writes: |> >> |> >> I have an article from the book Fundamental Algorithms for |> >>Computer Graphics written by Richard F. Voss that talks about fractal |> grammar in Dom Paolo Ferretti's ESTHETIQUE GREGORIENNE. (The French |> translation of this book appeared in 1938, so don't expect to find any |> There are any number of "dice composers" which apply a similar principle to |> tonal music, the most famous being by Mozart. Here, a random procedure is |> >and why good melodies *sound* good, try reading Leonard Meyer's |> >_Emotion_and_Meaning_in_Music_ and _Explaining_Music_. |> > |> sorts of insights Philip has in mind would do better to turn to a book |> like John Sloboda's THE MUSICAL MIND. (I disagree with a good deal of |> in a hierarchy; and this assumption has been carried on by both Meyer and |> Narmour, on one hand, Lerdahl and Jackendoff, on another, and Yeston, on a |> third. (There are probably several more hands lurking out there, but I am |> not particularly inclined to catalog them.) Fortunately, Lewin seems to have |> broken out of this "dictatorship of the hierarchy" in his recent "Music Theory, |> Phenomenology, and Modes of Perception" paper; and my own guess is that he =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= QUINIOU Rene quiniou@irisa.fr INRIA / IRISA Phone : +33 99 36 20 00 Campus Universitaire de Beaulieu Fax : 99 38 38 32 35042 RENNES CEDEX - FRANCE Telex : UNIRISA 950 473F =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Post: 107 of 179 From: d88-jwa@nada.kth.se (Jon W{tte) Newsgroups: comp.music Subject: Re: Fractal Music Generation (summary) Keywords: I need help Date: 12 Apr 90 15:02:01 GMT Reply-To: d88-jwa@nada.kth.se (Jon W{tte) Organization: Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden Lines: 32 In article <9613@sdcc6.ucsd.edu>, mu298ac@sdcc6.ucsd.edu (Philip Marlowe) writes: > In article <1990Apr9.151958.26859@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> george@shumv1.ncsu.edu (George Browning) writes: > This is an incredibly obvious statement to make. Stepwise > motion is an important attribute of many tonal melodies,and 1/f > noise > generates stepwise motion. So why can't you program 1/f noise to > produce good tonal melodies? Because tonal melody is not random; it > has very strong directionality, and any programmer who wants to Actually, try making a plot of baroque music, and compare that to 1/f-squared noise. You'll find some interesting similarities ! (Yes, it's 1/f-squared and not 1/f as the original poster said) Gregorian music is closer to 1/f-cubed or even to the fourth... Now, where does that leave acid house ? (oh, sorry...) > Previous discussions in this group about fugues being > "self-similar" shows a lack of understanding about just what a fugue > is. Just because something is repeated at the same level, it doesn't Look at the mandelbrot set. It is self-similar, but skewed, rotated, mirrored and transformed in various ways. Actually, I think you could create reasonable fuge-LIKE music (actually, a whole new type) that was enjoyable using fractals. --- Stay alert ! - Trust no one ! - Keep your laser handy ! --- h+@nada.kth.se == h+@proxxi.se == Jon Watte longer .sig available on request Post: 115 of 179 From: music@batman.moravian.EDU (music) Newsgroups: comp.music,rec.music.classical Subject: Re: Fractal Music Generation (summary) Keywords: music theory, composition, Meyer Date: 12 Apr 90 19:38:04 GMT Followup-To: comp.music,rec.music.classical Organization: Moravian College, Bethlehem, PA Lines: 61 But is it MUSIC? ;-) I personally believe that all you've discussed regarding the algorithmic process of producing (or attempting to produce) "good tonal music" is rather more of a verbose punishment to the reader than the gleaning of any insight to the process being attempted (no offense intended!). I have worked around with algorithmic composition off and on for many years, but "gave up" on attempting to create an artificial musical learning base from which an algorithm could draw upon to produce anything more interesting than (and this is a bad example) the Mozart "Dice Minuet". So I personally decided that the goal of creating "good tonal music" through "pure math" was a non sequitur to the nature of the beast known as "tonal music". I therefore treaded into the teritory of composers such as Xenakis (and Cage from a philosophical, more than "technical" sense). In certain works of Xenakis, Herma (piano) for example, the music is about as far from "tonal" as it is from "12-tone serial" (we limit ourselves here to a system of 12 notes; if we were to explore beyond to the reaches of quarter-tones, arbitrary systems (i.e. Partch) we would be streaching the mind beyond most peoples comprehenshion, something I REALLY WANT TO DO (but that's another story!)). Xenakis uses algorithms to plot his pitch classes, tempi, dynamics, etc. in a way that is more or less "highly organized randomness". Personally, I think his advanced math has little to do with the ultimate outcome of the music, but I like what he does regardless. The music produces more of a gestalt experience than a profoundly complex serial work (like Boulez' Structures and any number of other works by strict 12-tone serialists). The music comes from that great unknown: CHANCE. By carefully controlling the elements of CHANCE on many levels (a grain of sand to an astroid) we can then begin to produce CHANCE-based organization, letting "nature control the music" (think of all the combined chaos and symetry in the universe) and the "composer" guide nature either via algorithms (serialization of chance structures) or by subjective reasoning (nurturing nature). Regardless of the outcome, "tonality" will be replaced by something of a higher order: music that exists etearnally just waiting to be "guided into place". This may smack of musical anarchy, but is the UNIVERSE anarchic? It may seem so on certain levels but ultimately "GOD" controls the "laws of nature" the way I like to control the "laws of the music of nature". Strict tonality/serialism is UN-natural. Only out of cultivating chaos can we deliver the truth of music. Humans have too long restrained themselves into believing that man-made rules about tonality (in the Western world at least) they have unwhittingly enslaved themselves into a very narrow "band" of the musical spectrum (as visible light is to the entire electromagnetic spectrum). We must explore the outer limits of sound and learn to appreciate them as we now appreciate "tonal" music. (Think (philosophically) of the music of the Krell in the film "Forbidden Planet" from the '50's. Think of 4'33". Think of the cosmic background radiation. Think of the Universe as "music in the making". And, finally, you'll probably think of ME as a raving lunatic...) --------------------------------------------------- | Stephen Heller - Music Technician | In transit from | CSNET -> music@batman.moravian.edu | the center of | UUCP -> ...!rutgers!liberty!batman!music | Time & Space... | INET -> music%batman.moravian.edu@relay.cs.net | --------------------------------------------------- Post: 117 of 179 From: rreid@esquire.UUCP ( r l reid ) Newsgroups: comp.music Subject: 1/f Date: 12 Apr 90 15:54:51 GMT Reply-To: rreid@esquire.UUCP ( r l reid ) Organization: ? ! Lines: 28 Keywords: e Browning) writes:9.151958.26859@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> george@shumv1.ncsu.edu (Georg >music. Voss says "One of my exciting discoveries was that almost all >musical melodies also mimic 1/f noise." He gives some pictures and The thing to be careful about is that the melodies mimic 1/f noise, not vice versa. I've got a 1/f program that cranks out endless (if you want) 1/f melodies, with some nice parameters (like "swing factor"). It's pleasent enough for a while, but eventually you find that you are going nowhere. Like, where's the cadence? What it is GREAT for is motive generation, if you are feeling uninspired one fine day and you MUST get a jingle together by 5 pm. In that case, crank 'er up, and listen for a lovely catchy little phrase to come by. Then you can pick that out, and start doing all the normal development kinds of things to it. The Voss algorithm is a lot of fun to play with and you can get all kinds of interesting things started with it. To make music, you'll have to take the output and work with it further. I can post a description of the algorithm is there is enough interest. Ro UUCP: { uunet | cmcl2 }!esquire!rreid Internet: rreid@dpw.com -or- rlr@woof.columbia.edu Post: 118 of 179 From: mcdonald@aries.scs.uiuc.edu (Doug McDonald) Newsgroups: comp.music,rec.music.classical Subject: Re: Fractal Music Generation (summary) Keywords: music theory, composition, Meyer Date: 13 Apr 90 13:50:58 GMT Reply-To: mcdonald@aries.scs.uiuc.edu (Doug McDonald) Organization: School of Chemical Sciences, Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Lines: 9 On a slightly different subject, but related - I have tried to write computer programs that imitate the paintings of Jackson Pollock - and it is very difficult. It is probably not impossible, but it would require essentially coding in the exact style of any painting. I did produce programs that make nice screen images, quite arty, but I never got close to the real thing. Doug McDonald Post: 122 of 179 From: bdb@becker.UUCP (Bruce Becker) Newsgroups: comp.music Subject: Re: Fractal Music Generation (summary) Keywords: I need help Date: 13 Apr 90 16:40:28 GMT Reply-To: bdb@becker.UUCP (Bruce Becker) Organization: G. T. S., Toronto, Ontario Lines: 31 s: article <1990Apr12.150201.12739@kth.se> d88-jwa@nada.kth.se (Jon W{tte) write |In article <9613@sdcc6.ucsd.edu>, mu298ac@sdcc6.ucsd.edu (Philip |Marlowe) writes: |> In article <1990Apr9.151958.26859@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> |george@shumv1.ncsu.edu (George Browning) writes: |[...] |> Previous discussions in this group about fugues being |> "self-similar" shows a lack of understanding about just what a fugue |> is. Just because something is repeated at the same level, it doesn't | |Look at the mandelbrot set. It is self-similar, but skewed, |rotated, mirrored and transformed in various ways. Actually, I |think you could create reasonable fuge-LIKE music (actually, a whole |new type) that was enjoyable using fractals. I know some folks who actually did this. They seem to have used Scho:nberg's "Principles of Harmony" (I might have the name wrong) to translate fractal states into MIDI outputs. I don't know how they interpreted the text to produce the results, but it was reasonably musical, but not particularly melodic. As the fractal was being generated on an Amiga, the music would change according to the part of the M set and depth of recursion... -- ,u, Bruce Becker Toronto, Ontario a /i/ Internet: bdb@becker.UUCP, bruce@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu `\o\-e UUCP: ...!uunet!mnetor!becker!bdb _< /_ "Free your ass and your mind will follow" - Punkadelic Post: 128 of 179 From: carroll@bcsaic.UUCP (Jeff Carroll) Newsgroups: comp.music,alt.fractals,comp.sources.wanted Subject: Re: Fractal Music Generation (summary) Keywords: I need help Date: 13 Apr 90 06:20:07 GMT Reply-To: carroll@bcsaic.UUCP (Jeff Carroll) Organization: Boeing Computer Services AI Center, Seattle Lines: 39 e Browning) writes:9.151958.26859@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> george@shumv1.ncsu.edu (Georg > > I have an article from the book Fundamental Algorithms for >Computer Graphics written by Richard F. Voss that talks about fractal >music. Voss says "One of my exciting discoveries was that almost all >musical melodies also mimic 1/f noise." He gives some pictures and >examples, including a couple of "spectral density measurements of the >pitch variations in various types of music showing their common >correlations as 1/f noise" These graphs show such things as Medieval >music up to 1300, Beethoven's 3rd Symphony and the Beatles Sgt. Pepper. Nothing particularly exciting, profound, or metaphysical about that. The reason that spectral density of music seems to vary as 1/f is that musical scales are logarithmic in frequency - that is, musical pitch intervals as measured by a musician are proportional to the logarithm of the corresponding frequency intervals measured by an engineer. This, incidentally, is why the slide switches on a graphic equalizer cover wider bands as frequency gets higher. The pitches, or "musical states", get farther apart in frequency as frequency goes up. Therefore the spectral density varies roughly as 1/f. It's analogous to the relationship between decibels and watts, or between the Richter scale and the displacement (in inches) of the ground under your feet. It's clear that neither medieval chants, nor Beethoven, nor Sergeant Pepper can be strictly described as "1/f noise". It is not the "1/f"ness of this music that makes it interesting, great, or even musical. Once you've built a real 1/f noise generator you'll realize that. It might be more interesting to know whether the spectral density of music along the *pitch* axis is normally distributed (approximately, of course), or skewed one way or the other. In such a case, the spectral (frequency) density of the music could be said to fit a log-normal distribution. Jeff Carroll carroll@atc.boeing.com Post: 144 of 179 From: rreid@esquire.UUCP ( r l reid ) Newsgroups: comp.music Subject: Re: 1/f Date: 17 Apr 90 13:29:21 GMT Reply-To: rreid@esquire.UUCP ( r l reid ) Organization: ? ! Lines: 186 When I said recently that I'd be willing to post a description of and some code using the Voss algorithm, I got deluged with requests. Some hungry folks out there! If you missed that thread, there was some discusssion about 1/f noise as "representing" a lot of music. The fallacy in there is that while you may be able to take a lot of music and find that kind of distribution in it, it doesn't follow that pink noise is sufficient to generate music. In fact, it isn't. But if you appraoch it as a toy, you can have some fun with it. Disclaimer on the code - since this is a toy, the code isn't as generalized as it could be. And of course you use it at your own risk. First, a basic description of What It Is. My note generating program is called pink, and I wrote this about it: pink generates to stdout a list of octave point pitch class numbers as newline-null terminated charater strings (good for sending to pipes). The numbers are generated using the Voss argorithm as described by John Simonton in 1970. Our control is to choose the 16 candidate notes (these are kept in a file), and to a lesser extent the seed for the random number generator (curerntly hard coded as 23). We have 5 dice with four sides. We have a five bit counter. We increment the five bit counter. Any dice whose corresponding bit has changed as a result of the incrementation gets re-rolled. The values of the 5 dice are added. This is the index into the candidate list. As in craps, the middle of the list is favored. (In fact I have yet to roll all zeros or all threes, so I have yet to use the very ends of my list). This is derived from the idea of pink noise, hence the name. (The reference to Simonton is because I modeled my program after the one he wrote in 6502 assembler for the PAiA. Unfortunatly this gave my code a rather assembler-like flavor - bitmasks? Barf!) As you can see, the idea is pretty simple - you're just favoring certain notes. Now, my program is generating 8ve.pchclass pitches - you can use MIDI notes if that's what you need, or you could use this to select time values, or timbres, or anything else you might want. What's also obvious to me is that the choice of candidate notes will very much influence how pleasent the result is. Of course, you will need to plug these pitches (or whatever) into notecards (or whatever) with other information. And if you want to make Music (capital M), you will not be able to use this for much more than a jumping off point. You give this program 2 arguments: the filename of the candidate list, and the number of notes you want to generate. Here's my code: #define NUMDICE 5 #define DICESIDES 4 int dice_reg[2]; int dice[NUMDICE]; int dice_side[DICESIDES]; int numnotes; static int dice_vals[DICESIDES] = { 0, 1, 2, 3, }; static char candidates[8][16]; #define SEED 23 #define STATESIZE 256 char state[STATESIZE]; static int mask[NUMDICE] = { 01, 02, 04, 08, 010, }; #include #include main(ac, av) int ac; char *av[]; { int i, j, k; char *c, *index(); FILE *fp; if(ac != 3) { av[0]); fprintf(stderr, "usage: %s 16notefile number_of_notes_to_gen\n", exit(-1); } if((numnotes = atoi(av[2])) < 1) { fprintf(stderr, "%s is a strange number of notes\n", av[2]); av[0]); fprintf(stderr, "usage: %s 16notefile number_of_notes_to_gen\n", exit(-1); } if((fp = fopen(av[1], "r")) == NULL) { fprintf(stderr, "Can't open %s\n", av[1]); av[0]); fprintf(stderr, "usage: %s 16notefile number_of_notes_to_gen\n", perror("fopen"); exit(-1); } for(i = 0; i < 16; i++) { if(fgets(candidates[i], 8, fp) == NULL) { fprintf(stderr, "input needs 16, not %d notes\n", i); _gen\n", av[0]); fprintf(stderr, "usage: %s 16notefile number_of_notes_to exit(-1); } if(c = index(candidates[i], '\n')) *c = '\0'; } for(j = 0; j < 2; j++) dice_reg[j] = 0; /* done initializing dice registers to 0 */ for(i = 0; i < NUMDICE; i++) dice[i] = random()%DICESIDES; /* done initializing dice to random */ initstate(SEED, state, STATESIZE); for(k = 0; k < numnotes; k++) { dice_reg[1] = dice_reg[0]; dice_reg[0]++; for(i = 0; i < NUMDICE; i++) /* check the low DICENUM bits one at a time */ /* do this by ORing with the right mask */ /* then if the XOR is true, the bits examined*/ /* are different and we need to roll the die */ if((mask[i] & dice_reg[0]) != (mask[i] & dice_reg[1])) { #ifdef TEST fprintf(stderr,"rerolling %d\n", i); #endif dice[i] = random()%DICESIDES; } /* add up the dice and this is the index into the cand */ #ifdef TEST fprintf(stderr, "%d %d %d %d %d = ", dice[0], dice[1], dice[2], dice[3], dice[4]); #endif for(j = i = 0; i < NUMDICE; i++) { j += dice[i]; } #ifdef TEST fprintf(stderr, "%d\n", j); #endif printf("%s\n", candidates[j]); } } Here was my candidate list for a nice background stream of notes: 7.00 7.04 7.07 8.00 8.04 8.07 9.00 8.07 8.09 8.05 8.02 7.02 7.05 7.02 7.05 7.09 Have fun. Naturally, this code is supplied without any warrantee of any kind. Ro UUCP: { uunet | cmcl2 }!esquire!rreid Internet: rreid@dpw.com -or- rlr@woof.columbia.edu Post: 147 of 179 From: eliot@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Eliot Handelman) Newsgroups: comp.music earch Digest Vol. 5, #36)Handelman quoting Laske quoting Bel (was: Re: Music-Res Date: 18 Apr 90 05:01:33 GMT Reply-To: eliot@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Eliot Handelman) Organization: Princeton University, NJ Lines: 78 In article <12935@venera.isi.edu> smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) writes: ;In article <15369@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> eliot@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Eliot ;Handelman) writes: ;> If it ;>happens that something tolerably interesting is produced through a random ;>model -- interesting by comparison with standards set by other non-randomaly ;>determined music, early serial, for example -- then one would have to ;>conclude, assuming some sort of homomorphism between the compositional and ;>the cognitive/perceptual, that the random generation model is telling you ;>something about the perception of the world, that perception may have a factor ;>of randomness built into it. Now this conclusion seems absurb and unwarranted, ;>but it parallels, I think, equivalent statements concerning the potential ;>relevance of NN-based music. ;Actually, I would not be so quick to write this approach off as absurd. As I ;suggested in a recent article about using fractals, experimenting with random ;methods, if properly done, may tell us some valuable things about the ;GRANULARITY at which decisions of composition are made. Mozart's dice ;composer "works" (and there are any number of levels at which it DOES ;work) by virtue of invariants among alternatives whose choice is left ;to chance. You can do a Roman numeral analysis which will remain the ;same no matter what the dice choose for you. (I've done this.) You ;can probably also derive a Schenker middle-ground from which you can ;then derive all the different possible foregrounds which the dice may ;provide. (I haven't done that one.) To go back to that old Ligeti analysis ;of Boulez, the study of random processes may tell us when enough decisions have ;been made that it just doesn't matter how the remaining ones come out; and ;that seems like pretty valuable information about both composition and ;perception. I think there's a false teleology somewhere in here. I can make a not so bad sounding piece for tom-toms by flipping coins, assuming the piece doesn't go on too long, and I'm using a constant pulse. Typical sequences will always have a structural richness unconstrained by the composition rule, and just so that we know what we're talking about here's an example of a randomly generated tom-tom piece: ABBAAABBABAABAAABAABABBAAAAAAAABAAAAABBAAAAABAABABBBAABAAABAABAAABABAABB I'm not saying this is good or bad, only that this can serve as the basis for an extended form and analysis seminar that will have nothing to do with the way in which it was generated. Compare, for example, with part of the (I should say "a") tom-tom part in Stockhausen's early work Kreuzspiel, consisting of sequence ABAABAAABAAAABAAAAAB etc. That seems to be a subtext of my randomly generated sequence. We -- that is, as listeners (or really here as analysis hacks who learned to talk about music from Allen Forte) could say things like "the repetition of BB at unit 7 casts a reminder back to the opening," that the opening begins with the symmetrical statement of ABB and then enlarges on that symmetry with the pattern AB then AAB then AAAB which is then folded back on itself through AAB then AB, the latter cell being pivotally exploited for reintroducing the opening motive, ABB: the promise of densely composed out material is then gradually withdrawn by suspending the B tom-tom for eight units, at which point the listener, on presentation of the B anew followed by the 5fold inistence on A again (thus introducing the fibonacci series as a hypothesis of compositional determinism) realizes that the inversion around the motivic axis AAAB was responsible for introducing the develpmental idea of diminution, and one could easily continue in this manner. I'm only claiming for the purpose of argument that this analysis has something to do with how a resourceful listener, not easily put to sleep, MIGHT hear this kind of thing -- might, because other analyses can be constructed. Each of these analyses makes assumptions on the part of the listener, and none of these assumptions can be traced back to the composition rule. Now as to the Mozart example: your concept of "works" is that you get a conventional set of harmonies out of it. You're not suggesting that was random (if so, look at the Thomas Atwood notebooks). You say that music works: I say that music stinks. "Works," in my concept of Mozart, is something like the slow movement of the f major quartet, and I don't see a mapping from the technique of dice composition to the technique of that movement. As to the grain of decision making in composition: it's whatever you want it to be. We live in the free world. I stick to my guns: no inference from autocomposition, including the formulaic, to perception. Post: 151 of 179 From: aipdc@castle.ed.ac.uk (Paul D. Crowley) Newsgroups: comp.music Subject: Re: "Only Amateurs" Re: Music-Research Digest Vol. 5, #34 Date: 18 Apr 90 16:48:59 GMT Reply-To: aipdc@castle.ed.ac.uk (Paul D. Crowley) Organization: Edinburgh University Computing Service Lines: 6 I'd agree that trying to generate music algorithmically is usually a pretty poor thing for a musician to be doing - but surely it's a perfectly good thing for an AI dept. to be doing? - \/ o\ "I say we grease this rat-fuck son-of-a-bitch Paul D Crowley /\__/ right now. No offense." - Aliens. aipdc@uk.ac.ed.castle Post: 158 of 179 From: andyn@stpstn.UUCP (Andy Novobilski) Newsgroups: comp.music,alt.fractals,comp.sources.wanted Subject: Re: Fractal Music Generation (summary) Keywords: the 3 M's: math, music, midi Date: 19 Apr 90 20:18:03 GMT Reply-To: andyn@stepstone.com (Andy Novobilski) Organization: The Stepstone Corporation, Sandy Hook, CT 06482 Lines: 19 Somewhere in the 1984-87 time frame, there was an article published in the proceedings of USENIX (or some UNIX conference) by a research team at AT&T on the topic of Binary Stocastic Subdivision as an algorithm for generating music. Included in the article was a number that you could call to hear a demonstration of the algorithm played on a set of MIDI controlled instruments. I know the information is sketchy, but a little time at a technical library should yield the reference. If anyone is interested and can't locate the paper in a local library, I'd be happy to try and find it at home. Best of luck, Andy -- Andy Novobilski | The Stepstone Corp. | The expressed views have been andyn@stepstone.com | 75 Glen Rd. | approved by a committee of three: (203)426-1875 | Sandy Hook, CT 06482 | the goldfish, blackfish, and me. Post: 159 of 179 From: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) Newsgroups: comp.music earch Digest Vol. 5, #36)Handelman quoting Laske quoting Bel (was: Re: Music-Res Summary: teleology at ten paces Date: 20 Apr 90 00:31:03 GMT Reply-To: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) Organization: USC-Information Sciences Institute Lines: 74 In article <15439@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> eliot@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Eliot Handelman) writes: >In article <12935@venera.isi.edu> smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) >writes: >;In article <15369@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> eliot@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Eliot >;Handelman) writes: >;> If it >;>happens that something tolerably interesting is produced through a random >;>model -- interesting by comparison with standards set by other non-randomaly >;>determined music, early serial, for example -- then one would have to >;>conclude, assuming some sort of homomorphism between the compositional and >;>the cognitive/perceptual, that the random generation model is telling you >;>something about the perception of the world, that perception may have a >;>factor >;>of randomness built into it. Now this conclusion seems absurb and >;>unwarranted, >;>but it parallels, I think, equivalent statements concerning the potential >;>relevance of NN-based music. > >;Actually, I would not be so quick to write this approach off as absurd. As I >;suggested in a recent article about using fractals, experimenting with random >;methods, if properly done, may tell us some valuable things about the >;GRANULARITY at which decisions of composition are made. Mozart's dice >;composer "works" (and there are any number of levels at which it DOES >;work) by virtue of invariants among alternatives whose choice is left >;to chance. You can do a Roman numeral analysis which will remain the >;same no matter what the dice choose for you. (I've done this.) You >;can probably also derive a Schenker middle-ground from which you can >;then derive all the different possible foregrounds which the dice may >;provide. (I haven't done that one.) To go back to that old Ligeti analysis >;of Boulez, the study of random processes may tell us when enough decisions >;have >;been made that it just doesn't matter how the remaining ones come out; and >;that seems like pretty valuable information about both composition and >;perception. > >I think there's a false teleology somewhere in here. If that's your way of saying that we are coming at this with different objectives, then you're right. I am not interested in whether or not "I can make a not so bad sounding piece" by any random process. I AM interested in those random processes which, at some (probably ill-defined) level, do not SOUND like random processes. (Note that this is a question of subjective human perception, as opposed to the exegetic skills of your mathematically-trained theorist.) Such processes probably tell us more about how one listens than they do about how one composes; but that does not make them the less interesting (at least in my book, which you are free to return to the library as long as you have not damaged the spine). (I would argue, by the way, in response to a remark by Paul Crowley, that the sort of inquiry I have posed is a "perfectly good thing for an AI dept. to be doing." I am not so sure about the sort of composition objectives you have in mind. Composing is a perfectly good thing for composers to do, and I would just as soon leave it there. If they wish to draw upon the resources of artificial intelligence, they are as free to do so as if they wish to draw inspiration from architecture. About the only thing I can think of which would concern an AI department would be a POST HOC analysis of what such a composer had done with those resources.) ========================================================================= USPS: Stephen Smoliar USC Information Sciences Institute 4676 Admiralty Way Suite 1001 Marina del Rey, California 90292-6695 Internet: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu "By long custom, social discouse in Cambridge in intended to impart and only rarely to obtain information. People talk; it is not expected that anyone will listen. A respectful show of attention is all that is required until the listener takes over in his or her turn. No one has ever been known to repeat what he or she has heard at a party or other social gathering." John Kenneth Galbraith A TENURED PROFESSOR Post: 161 of 179 From: mo@flash.bellcore.com (Michael O'Dell) Newsgroups: comp.music,alt.fractals,comp.sources.wanted Subject: Re: Fractal Music Generation (summary) Keywords: the 3 M's: math, music, midi Date: 20 Apr 90 02:24:12 GMT Reply-To: mo@flash.UUCP (Michael O'Dell) Organization: The Center for Virtual Reality Lines: 8 Sorry, folks, it tweren't AT&T, but Bellcore's own Peter Langston -Mike O'Dell -Mike O'Dell "I can barely speak for myself, much less anyone else!" ---------------------------------------- The Center for Virtual Reality -- "Solving yesterday's problems tomorrow!" Post: 163 of 179 From: mcnamara@vixvax.mgi.com Newsgroups: comp.music,alt.fractals Subject: Re: Fractal Music Generation (summary) Date: 14 Apr 90 03:07:20 GMT Organization: Management Graphics, Inc. Lines: 43 In article <562@bilver.UUCP>, alex@bilver.UUCP (Alex Matulich) writes: > Several weeks ago I posted an a plea for help in comp.music and > comp.sources.wanted for an algorithm to generate fractal music. I lost the > original text of my posting, but the gist of it was this: > > A fugue is a piece of music rich in self-similar structure. J. S. Bach, a > master at writing fugues, was able to maintain up to six instrumental parts > playing a short theme in different ways -- at different pitches, different > speeds, inverted, upside-down, backwards, and so on -- and it all fit > together too! > > Fractals also are rich in self-similar structure. By definition, after all, > a fractal IS a self-similar object. The parallels between fractals and > fugues seem so close, I thought, that maybe a MUSICAL fractal generator > could be developed as an aid in writing fugues. > > I tried an experiment based on the generation of a Koch curve, assigning > a relationship between note pitch and line angle, and another relationship > between note duration and line length. My experimented generated a > sequence of notes that sounded interesting. The problem is that it was > a single monotonic sequence. How can a fractal music generator be made > to create overlapping sequences of notes which have harmonically correct > relations to each other? > In 1988 or thereabouts Charles Dodge (_Earths' Magnetic Field_) came to Mpls. to lecture about computer music. He brought with him a tape of several pieces of music, one generated using fractal relationships between the parts of the composition. As I recall, he generated an initial fractal sequence, and then used fractal relations to generate the other parts from the original one. The music was interesting. Sort of like 101 Strings does Phillip Glass. As he put it: "This is the first computer music I've heard which sounds like bad music(previous attempts didn't sound like music at all)." There were several other interesting pieces on the tape. The best one was by Curtis Braun, titled _Brontosaurus_. It was a child's poem, read by a computer voice synthesis program, and then modified by the composer into a sort of self-similar composition. I think he would send you the tape, and/or provide details of his algorithms. He is at the Brooklyn College Center for Computer Music. Phone (718) 780-5582. Curt McNamara mcnamara@mgi.com Post: 165 of 179 From: scott@bbxsda.UUCP (Scott Amspoker) Newsgroups: comp.music Subject: Re: "Only Amateurs" Re: Music-Research Digest Vol. 5, #34 Date: 20 Apr 90 15:47:22 GMT Reply-To: scott@bbxsda.UUCP (Scott Amspoker) Organization: Basis International, Albuquerque, NM Lines: 15 :n article <3370@castle.ed.ac.uk> aipdc@castle.ed.ac.uk (Paul D. Crowley) writes >I'd agree that trying to generate music algorithmically is usually a >pretty poor thing for a musician to be doing - but surely it's a >perfectly good thing for an AI dept. to be doing? I don't 100% agree with this. I have never worked with algorithmic composers but it seems to me that they could help "suggest" ideas that a human composer could work with. (Sometimes it takes that leap of logic to break out of a rut.) -- Scott Amspoker Basis International, Albuquerque, NM (505) 345-5232 unmvax.cs.unm.edu!bbx!bbxsda!scott Post: 166 of 179 From: maverick@fir.berkeley.edu (Vance Maverick) Newsgroups: comp.music Subject: Algorithmic composing tools Date: 20 Apr 90 19:43:13 GMT Reply-To: maverick@fir.berkeley.edu (Vance Maverick) Lines: 11 In article <695@bbxsda.UUCP>, scott@bbxsda.UUCP (Scott Amspoker) writes: > I have never worked with algorithmic > composers but it seems to me that they could help "suggest" ideas > that a human composer could work with. (Sometimes it takes that > leap of logic to break out of a rut.) Or that leap of illogic. A "random" program doesn't know anything about your rut, even if you think you've constrained it to do the kinds of things you're thinking of. I find these tools useful for generating raw material I could not have invented myself, which I can then polish at my leisure. Post: 167 of 179 From: eliot@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Eliot Handelman) Newsgroups: comp.music earch Digest Vol. 5, #36)Handelman quoting Laske quoting Bel (was: Re: Music-Res Date: 20 Apr 90 22:41:19 GMT Reply-To: eliot@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Eliot Handelman) Organization: Princeton University, NJ Lines: 17 In article <12988@venera.isi.edu> smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) writes: ;In article <15439@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> eliot@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Eliot ;Handelman) writes: [no inference from music automatons to perception etc.] ; I am not interested in whether or not ;"I can make a not so bad sounding piece" by any random process. I AM ;interested in those random processes which, at some (probably ill-defined) ;level, do not SOUND like random processes. But Steve, when you come right down to it, what DOES sound like a random process? My students complained that Pierrot Lunaire, of all things, sounded like random processes to them -- obviously that changes with a wee bit of effort. Whereas with over 20 years moderne Musik behind me, not even the Williams Mix sounds like a random process to me. It's already carrying a hell of a lot of history. Post: 168 of 179 From: latta@sting.Berkeley.EDU (Craig R. Latta) Newsgroups: comp.music Subject: Re: Algorithmic composing tools Keywords: Reality is a better source Date: 21 Apr 90 00:17:35 GMT Reply-To: latta@sting.Berkeley.EDU (Craig R. Latta) Organization: Music Department, UC Berkeley Lines: 30 X-Local-Date: 20 Apr 90 17:17:35 PDT In article <24264@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>, maverick@fir.berkeley.edu (Vance Maverick) writes: |> In article <695@bbxsda.UUCP>, scott@bbxsda.UUCP (Scott Amspoker) writes: |> > I have never worked with algorithmic |> > composers but it seems to me that they could help "suggest" ideas |> > that a human composer could work with. (Sometimes it takes that |> > leap of logic to break out of a rut.) |> |> Or that leap of illogic. A "random" program doesn't know anything about |> your rut, even if you think you've constrained it to do the kinds of |> things you're thinking of. I find these tools useful for generating raw |> material I could not have invented myself, which I can then polish at my |> leisure. |> I find sources from Real Life (people talking, cats meowing, jackhammers jacking, etc.) much more useful than some machine throwing out noises with s generated from . For me, there is a point when the use of automata in creating emotion is silly. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Craig Latta "Those who know History are latta@swindle.Berkeley.EDU doomed to explain it" -- me. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: 171 of 179 From: pauld@hpausla.aso.hp.com (Paul Doornbusch) Newsgroups: comp.music Subject: Re: "Only Amateurs" Re: Music-Research Digest Vol. 5, #34 Date: 21 Apr 90 01:33:31 GMT Organization: HP Australian Software Operation Lines: 16 Well I'm a composer who has been writing for several years. I've been through many music courses at various universities throughout the world, and I work with many successful and famous composers. I am interested in algorithmic composition (and I've never heard a colleague criticize it) because I'm aware that I use an algorithm when I write, formalizing that would be advantageous in understanding what I'm doing. Once the algorithm is formalized it may then be used with data to produce a composition. Advanced pieces are becoming structurally more complex, a strong structure as defined by the algorithm will allow the composer to produce such a piece. Because of the mass of data involved the process can take extraordinary amounts of time, computers are the key here as they allow the data to be manipulated more easily and quickly. I hope that this explains more of what it's all about. Post: 172 of 179 From: smasters@gmuvax2.gmu.edu (Shawn Masters) Newsgroups: comp.music,alt.fractals,comp.sources.wanted Subject: Re: Fractal Music Generation (summary) Summary: It was in Science News Keywords: the 3 M's: math, music, midi Date: 21 Apr 90 15:53:36 GMT Reply-To: smasters@gmuvax2.UUCP (Shawn Masters) Followup-To: comp.music Organization: George Mason Univ. Fairfax, Va. Lines: 9 I saw an article a number of years back about something like that. It was in Science News, and was talking about AI algorithm design this one team of researchers was doing. Not only did calling this number just play music, I seem to remeber that it was semi-interactive, and they wanted the general public to test it. In the end the reponse was to great, so they shut down the line. smasters@gmuvax2 smasters@gmuvax Post: 173 of 179 From: pauld@hpausla.aso.hp.com (Paul Doornbusch) Newsgroups: comp.music Subject: Re: Algorithmic composing tools Date: 22 Apr 90 05:48:18 GMT Organization: HP Australian Software Operation Lines: 32 21, 1990 /omp.music / latta@sting.Berkeley.EDU (Craig R. Latta) / 10:17 am Apr In article <24264@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>, maverick@fir.berkeley.edu (Vance Maverick) writes: |> In article <695@bbxsda.UUCP>, scott@bbxsda.UUCP (Scott Amspoker) writes: |> > I have never worked with algorithmic |> > composers but it seems to me that they could help "suggest" ideas |> > that a human composer could work with. (Sometimes it takes that |> > leap of logic to break out of a rut.) |> |> Or that leap of illogic. A "random" program doesn't know anything about |> your rut, even if you think you've constrained it to do the kinds of |> things you're thinking of. I find these tools useful for generating raw |> material I could not have invented myself, which I can then polish at my |> leisure. |> I find sources from Real Life (people talking, cats meowing, jackhammers jacking, etc.) much more useful than some machine throwing out noises with s generated from . For me, there is a point when the use of automata in creating emotion is silly. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Craig Latta "Those who know History are latta@swindle.Berkeley.EDU doomed to explain it" -- me. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- Post: 174 of 179 From: pauld@hpausla.aso.hp.com (Paul Doornbusch) Newsgroups: comp.music Subject: Re: Algorithmic composing tools Date: 22 Apr 90 06:00:14 GMT Organization: HP Australian Software Operation Lines: 38 [ notes went berserk and posted the previous reply before I'd started it, apologies to all] > I find sources from Real Life (people talking, cats meowing, > jackhammers jacking, etc.) much more useful than some machine > throwing out noises with s generated from > . The machine may be throwing out pitches and rhythms that are permutations of your previous work. Naturally occuring noises are very usefull if that is what you want to use as a basis for a piece ,a la Bartok or Kodaly. As a method for (you imply "inspiration") it is no better or worse than any other method, and substansially less controllable or dare I say random than some others. > For me, there is a point when the use of automata in > creating emotion is silly. At the risk of starting another notes network storm, what has emotion got to do with music (I will cite Stravinski, Schoenberg, and Boulez as references, there are many more)? I write music for other people to enjoy, whether they have an emotional reaction to a piece is not under my control, and enjoyment may take many forms. There is no doubt in my mind that all music is enjoyable in some way to some people, and equally non-ejnoyable to others. Lyrics may invoke an emotion as words are a widely understood method of communication, but pitches and rhythms are extremely diverse both within and between cultures, and invoke wildly varying responses from people depending on many things: culture; education; solialization; age; personal history; and so on. For example there are Indian ragas that invoke fear in parts of India because people believe that they will cause all water to burst into flame, I may find these interesting or enjoyable to listen to, and others may find them repulsive. The use of automata in creating music is as valid a method as any, and more flexible than a lot of other methods. Using music to create emotion is hazardous at best, writing music for people to enjoy (define that as you wish) seems much more achievable. Post: 175 of 179 From: maverick@fir.berkeley.edu (Vance Maverick) Newsgroups: comp.music Subject: Re: Algorithmic composing tools Date: 22 Apr 90 18:41:55 GMT Reply-To: maverick@fir.berkeley.edu (Vance Maverick) Lines: 43 > > I find sources from Real Life (people talking, cats meowing, > > jackhammers jacking, etc.) much more useful than some machine > > throwing out noises with s generated from > > . > > The machine may be throwing out pitches and rhythms that are > permutations of your previous work. Naturally occuring noises are > very usefull if that is what you want to use as a basis for a piece ,a > la Bartok or Kodaly. As a method for (you imply "inspiration") it is > no better or worse than any other method, and substansially less > controllable or dare I say random than some others. And "a machine throwing out noises" with random "parameters" sounds like a pretty good description of a jackhammer.... > The use of automata in creating music is as valid a method as any, and > more flexible than a lot of other methods. Using music to create > emotion is hazardous at best, writing music for people to enjoy > (define that as you wish) seems much more achievable. I think you're in trouble if you make other people's enjoyment your single goal and criterion. After all, your access to your own sensibility is much more direct than your access to others'. It's satisfying if other people like your music, and vital if you live by your music, but I think it's a side effect. My definition of what we're up to in doing music is similar to Craig's, though "creating emotion" sounds as Romantic as Clynes' seven gestures. Is the experience of following Stravinsky through the concerto for piano and winds "emotion"? Perhaps in the broadest definition. Acoustical events have aesthetic properties, which we apprehend somehow -- intuitively, mystically, analytically, whatever. We like some of these, and seek to build acoustical events with properties we care about. (Maybe we invent the properties of our own pieces, maybe we refine them from what our environment gives us.) Craig feels the real world is richer in aesthetic properties than computer-generated sounds; sure, but once you've found properties you like in a set of parameters for your computer, the next step is easy to take. Paul Doornbusch's attitude towards algorithms (expressed in an earlier posting) shows a confidence that the properties of the output inhere in the input, which I don't share. Musical structure is a tool, not the meaning of the music. Post: 177 of 179 From: latta@sting.Berkeley.EDU (Craig R. Latta) Newsgroups: comp.music Subject: Re: Algorithmic composing tools Date: 23 Apr 90 04:10:44 GMT Reply-To: latta@sting.Berkeley.EDU (Craig R. Latta) Organization: Music Department, UC Berkeley Lines: 38 X-Local-Date: 22 Apr 90 21:10:44 PDT Paul Doornbusch writes: "At the risk of starting another notes network storm, what has emotion got to do with music?" You can either ignore music, or you can react to it: you can feel some way about it (have an emotional response). This response can then lead to others (i.e., a spurring of the intellect, to satisfy a desire to "understand" what has been heard). Vance Maverick writes: "And 'a machine throwing out noises' with random 'parameters' sounds like a pretty good description of a jackhammer...." Yes, but do you have to spend several hundreds or thousands of dollars, or become involved in a research project, to utilize that source? My point is that the current tools of algorithmic composition are too cumbersome, expensive, and inaccessible relative to the much richer array of sources around us all the time, wherever we are. Vance further writes: "Musical structure is a tool, not the meaning of the music." Right on. -C ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Craig Latta "Those who know History are latta@swindle.Berkeley.EDU doomed to explain it" -- me. Post: 224 of 225 From: mgresham@artsnet.UUCP (Mark Gresham) Newsgroups: comp.music Subject: Re: Fractal Music Generation (summary) Keywords: I need help Date: 3 May 90 23:33:12 GMT Reply-To: mgresham@artsnet.UUCP (Mark Gresham) Organization: ARTSNET Atlanta, GA USA Lines: 30 In article <23087@bcsaic.UUCP> carroll@bcsaic.UUCP (Jeff Carroll) writes: >It might be more interesting to know whether the spectral density of >music along the *pitch* axis is normally distributed (approximately, of >course), or skewed one way or the other. In such a case, the spectral >(frequency) density of the music could be said to fit a log-normal >distribution. Do you mean by that 1) how often pitches appear in a piece (like Beethoven's 3rd Symphony) throughout the audible spectrum? In that case, are you considering duration or just how many times a given pitch is initiated? 2) or are you wondering how frequently a pitch occurs within a given tune? If that, you might like to know that in a large proportion of tunes from oral traditions and tunes made up by children exhibit this order of frequency, in terms of the diatonic scale (in the scale degrees numbered 1 to 8 for 'white keys' C to C: more often ... less often 5 3 6 2 1 8 7 4 Cheers, --Mark ======================================== Mark Gresham ARTSNET Norcross, GA, USA E-mail: ...gatech!artsnet!mgresham or: artsnet!mgresham@gatech.edu ========================================